Bay Area Reporter Restructures

The Bay Area Reporter has announced a restructuring deal that includes a partnership with other local newspapers.

B.A.R. publisher Thomas E. Horn and general manager Michael Yamashita announced to the paper's staff Monday, April 22 that the Bob Ross Foundation, which owns the B.A.R. , has signed a letter of intent with Todd Vogt and Patrick Brown. Vogt and Brown are shareholders in the San Francisco Newspaper Company, which owns the Examiner, the San Francisco Bay Guardian, and SF Weekly. "This solves a myriad of problems that just have to be solved," Horn said, while "the paper will continue to be LGBT-majority owned and operated." A new company, BAR Media Inc., will be formed to acquire 100 percent of the stock of Benro Enterprises Inc., the principal asset of which is the newspaper.The B.A.R. isn't being sold. "We're not being bought out," said Yamashita, 47, who will own 31 percent of the new company and will become the paper's publisher. The foundation will own 20 percent. Vogt and Brown will own 49 percent, collectively.

The paper says it has an estimated weekly readership of 120,000.

Super Gay Bet: Blade Vs B.A.R.

From Washington Blade reporter Phil Reese:

Editors and publishers of the Washington Blade and the Bay Area Reporter, an LGBT newspaper in San Francisco, announced this week the terms of a bet for their respective teams playing in Sunday’s Super Bowl championship in New Orleans. If the Ravens win, BAR will send the Blade staff a lunch of dungeness crabs and a $1,000 donation to the local LGBT charity of the Blade’s choosing. If the 49ers win, the Blade will send BAR’s staff a lunch of Chesapeake Bay blue crabs and a $1,000 donation to a San Francisco LGBT charity of BAR’s choosing. “When Massachusetts legalized same-sex marriage in 2004, the Patriots won the Super Bowl. When New York legalized marriage in 2011, the Giants won the Super Bowl. In 2012, Maryland passed marriage equality, so it’s our turn,” said Blade editor Kevin Naff, who lives in Baltimore. “Go Ravens!”

I suppose it should be pointed out that DC legalized same-sex marriage in 2009 and that the Redskins finished last in their division that year, having won only four games all season. Yes, I had to look that up. Go sportsball! Go local/regional team! I like the ones in the aubergine blouses!

40 Activists Walk Into A Room....

Pictured above are the journalists, activists, researchers, allies and bloggers that attended this weekend's Haas Fund-sponsored conference on LGBT youth homelessness, suicide prevention, and immigration equality. All very good people.

UPDATE: Via the Windy City Times, here's everybody's names (from left to right).

Michael Rogers, Eden James, Phil Reese, Andrés Duque, Karen Ocamb, Jeremy Hooper, Jean Albright, Tracy Baim, Ksen Pallegedara, Zack Ford, Joe Mirabella, Carl Siciliano, Chris Geidner, Rod McCullom, Daniel Villarreal, Adam Bink, Chris Johnson, Ed Kennedy, Jerame Davis, Caitlin Ryan, Jason Cianciotto, Bil Browning, Rex Wockner, Elizbeth Plata, Matt Comer, Shannon Minter, Sunni Brydum, Andrew Belonsky, Joe Jervis, Cynthia Laird, Michael Jones, Liza Sabater, Ann Haas, Ed Plata.

Longtime Bay Area Reporter Columnist "Sweet Lips" Dies At Age 87

Bay Area Reporter columnist Richard Walters, who penned the paper's gossip and nightlife updates as "Sweet Lips" for the last 39 years, has died at the age of 87.

Sweet Lips and the late B.A.R. founding publisher Bob Ross were roommates when Sweet Lips started his self-described gossip column. Friends had helped with the column in recent years. Declining health led him to retire the column in June. Thomas E. Horn, the B.A.R.'s current publisher, called Sweet Lips "the Herb Caen of the LGBT community from the 1960s on," referring to the late, longtime San Francisco Chronicle columnist. For years, Sweet Lips wrote about people, bars, and events in San Francisco's Polk and Tenderloin areas. He worked in a few of the bars in the area. "When the Polkstrasse was the center of gay life in San Francisco, Lips knew every bartender, every club owner, most of the patrons, all of the cute boys, and, thus, most of the gossip of the community," said Horn in an e-mail. "He will always be a seminal part of gay history in San Francisco and will be particularly missed by his B.A.R. family," Horn added.

RELATED: The Bay Area Reporter lost another of its longtime writers last October when leather columnist Mister Marcus died at age 77 after penning his column for 38 years.

B.A.R. Posts All Obits Since 1980

In a joint project with the San Francisco Gay & Lesbian Historical Society, the Bay Area Reporter has created an online database of every obituary published since 1980.

For years, especially in the late 1980s and early 1990s, people who had died from complications related to AIDS dominated the B.A.R. 's obituary pages. Tom Burtch, a volunteer at San Francisco's GLBT Historical Society, has spent about three years scanning the obituaries from the paper's archives, which are stored at the society's Mission Street facility. The site will enable users to share memories and could eventually let them upload photos – "sort of like a Facebook page for each person," said Burtch. Burtch, who's been a member of the San Francisco Gay Men's Chorus for 24 years, had originally set out to find obituaries of former chorus members and put them online in time for the chorus's 30th anniversary last November. But after he started, he said, "I realized that was a little bit selfish of me. I felt that the greater community also needed an opportunity to mourn ... an ability to remember people and keep their memories alive."

By the early 90's, the B.A.R. was publishing pages of AIDS-related obituaries every week. In 1998, two years after the advent of protease inhibitors, the paper made international news when it published the words "No Obits" on its front page. It was the first time since the epidemic began that the paper had not received notice of an AIDS-related death.

Mister Marcus Dies At 77

Bay Area Reporter columnist Marcus Hernandez, known internationally to the leather community as Mister Marcus, has died at the age of 77 after a prolonged illness. His snark and gossip-filled column ran in the BAR for 38 years.

The cause of death was complications from diabetes and arteriosclerosis. Mr. Hernandez was known to his legions of readers by his pen name "Mister Marcus" and dubbed the "dean of leather columnists." His weekly columns of contest goings-on and gossip were a must-read for leather community leaders, titleholders, and newcomers alike for 38 years. Mr. Hernandez had been hospitalized since the summer, when his health condition worsened. He was surrounded by friends at the time of his death; one of his sons had traveled from North Carolina to be at his bedside earlier this week. "Mr. Marcus has been a San Francisco institution for decades," said B.A.R. publisher Thomas E. Horn. "He unapologetically brought his message of pride for the LGBT community in general and his beloved leather community in particular not only to San Francisco but to all the United States and even the world.

I've attended uncountable events emceed by Mister Marcus, where no one was safe from his rapier wit. He always made even the most mundane goings-on amusing. A memorial in celebration of his life will be held on November 21st at City Lights, 715 Harrison Street, San Francisco.

Poll: Prop 8 Repeal Will Be Tough In 2010

Although activists banned the media from their post-Meet In The Middle For Equality leadership summit so that new polling data didn't "provide ammunition to opponents of same-sex marriage", the results were published by the Bay Area Reporter yesterday. According to the latest survey, which was taken the first week of May, the "movable middle" on marriage equality is quite small and a Prop 8 repeal effort made in either 2010 or 2012 will be quite the battle.

Overall, the poll shows that California is split down the middle when it comes to same-sex marriage, with 47 percent in favor and 48 opposed. Those figures mirror other statewide polls that have been done since last fall's election, suggesting that many voters' minds are made up on the issue and the percentage of persuadable voters is very small, about 5 percent, Binder said Sunday during an informal news conference after the closed session.

The poll also shows the marriage equality side doing better in 2012 than in 2010. On a series of similar questions, the poll results show more support for reinstating the right of same-sex couples to marry (46 percent yes, 49 percent no in 2012, compared to 45 percent to 51 percent in 2010), or a constitutional amendment to end California's ban on same-sex marriage (47 percent yes, 47 percent no in 2012, compared to 47 percent yes, 48 percent no in 2010). However, Binder noted that a ballot measure in either year would be close. "It's a very close race regardless of whether it's 2010 or 2012," Binder said. "People's opinions are very strong on both sides."

Read Rex Wockner's coverage of the controversy over the media ban.